


Over the Garden Wall: Schooltown Follies

by earthkidsareweird



Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Over the Garden Wall Fusion, Ben Hanscom is a Good Friend, Eddie Kaspbrak Breaks an Arm, Eddie Kaspbrak is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Minor Bill Denbrough/Richie Tozier, Out of Character Pennywise (IT), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, The Unknown (Over the Garden Wall)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22656598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthkidsareweird/pseuds/earthkidsareweird
Summary: Richie and Eddie get all distracted when they realize some strange things are happening in the Unknown. They come across the Kitchener Ironworks where they meet a Ben Hanscom who would tell them all about the weird stuff if casual horrors didn't interrupt them.It's Over the Garden Wall but with Reddie Part 3!
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621285
Kudos: 12





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of character list:
> 
> Eddie=Wirt (ish)  
> Richie= Greg (ish)  
> Bev=Beatrice  
> Ben=Miss Langtree  
> Pennywise=The Beast
> 
> Bill is mentioned (w/ so much angst)

# I.

Bev isn’t sure when or if it’ll be appropriate to snap and kill Eddie or Richie. She tries her best to stay ahead, flying along the main path while the two bicker and bicker and bicker behind her. They’re not even walking fast as if they have nowhere to go after all that talk about going home. She has to get home otherwise her aunt’ll leave without her, leaving her stuck there forever. Bev lands on a tree branch waiting for them to catch up. Both of the boys are flailing their hands around while shouting not caring about being in the middle of the woods where the trees crouch close to them and there’s no telling what’ll happen when the sun goes down.

“Hey!” Bev makes a weak attempt to shout over them.

They’re so loud. She wishes she had hands still to cover her ears.

“What’s wrong with you? I don’t even get how we’re friends because we really can’t be friends anymore.” Richie keeps shouting at Eddie. “How can you not like George Carlin?”

“I never said I didn’t like him, I just said I don’t know who he is,” retorts Eddie.

“Ok, that’s a lie because we saw Bill and Ted together and also _What Am I Doing in New Jersey?_ is fucking hilarious and you’re gonna tell me you don’t know who George Carlin is?”

“Shut up, Richie! I don’t have to know everything you like besides you know I hate comedy.”

Richie fixes his glasses and keeps walking along the path with him. “Shut the fuck up, Eds. Who doesn’t like to laugh? Laughter is medicine. It’s an aphrodisiac. You know what that means, right?” 

“What? No! What are you--shut up, Richie!”

Richie gets Eddie to stop not even hearing Bev grumble her HEY! HEY! HEY! at them, Richie pokes Eddie’s shoulder while holding his frog friend with his other arm, it’s not hard but Eddie stands there rubbing his shoulder while giving him one real dirty look. “When we get home and we get out of all this,” his arms flail out to signal to the woods. “You. Me. We’re watching _Indecent Exposure_.”

“Or what if instead, we watch something like _C.H.U.D_ or-or _Night of the Comet_? You know something we actually like together. I bet you’ve never even seen anything by George Carlin and you’re just making this shit up.”

The two start to walk again and Bev gives up trying to talk to them. Richie hugs his frog. “What? Why would I fucking make something up? I got it from the video store the other day. The one that also has all the records, you know the one by the library.”

“When did you go to the video store?”

“Um, when you were too busy hanging out with your mom.”

“I was at the doctor’s!”

“Right, whatever. I went with Bill and Bill said he’d seen it at some other kid’s house so we got it.”

Eddie looks at Richie again with the dirty looks. “What? Isn’t it like R? How?”

“Stole it.” Richie is too proud of himself, Eddie almost wants to punch his smile off his face, but that’d be rude. “Easy, too, everybody thinks Bill’s all perfect since he’s always stuttering so he distracted the guy at the counter and I left with it.”

“Bull shit! None of that happened, and you know it. Also. . .when did you start hanging out with Bill so much? Like even for Halloween. I don’t get it.”

For some reason, Richie picks his pace up a bit. He tucks his free hand into his pocket while hanging out to his frog friend and provides no answer to Eddie’s question. He does talk because he’s not the sort ready to shut up, but it sure isn’t an answer. “Soylent Green! That’s the perfect name for Eddie Jr. here!” He lifts the frog in front of him. “Isn’t that right, Soylent Green?”

“It’s a stupid name because Soylent Green isn’t even frogs, its people. He’s not people.”

Richie whips his attention around gasping, his glasses almost fly off his face. “You take that back! Soylent Green can hear you!”

Eddie stops sucking his lips in and shakes his head. “Richard Trashmouth Tozier, I will fucking kill you one of these days, I swear it.”

“Great! I can’t wait!” 

Richie smirks and turns around to keep going but gets distracted because up ahead the path forks. Bev’s already going one way but the other way there’s something there. A sign points them in two directions and the one half reminds them, they sure are a lot closer to whatever the Kitchener Ironworks is and whatever it is, it’s big but appears to be in ruins. Metal juts out of the dirt in some places with collapsed branches all around them. Eddie shuts up, too. He stands there looking along the path, it’s like the metal is teeth about to eat them. They turn their attention towards where Bev is going, which looks about as normal as ever for these woods of the Unknown. Creepy trees reaching down attempting to scrap their fingers across your scalp.

It takes Bev a bit to realize that the two stopped. She has to swing back around and lands on the sign. “What do you even think you’re doing?”

Eddie points down the path. “What’s over there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Let me see.” She leans forward to look at the words on the sign then looks up. “Kitchener Ironworks. Now let’s go. To Adelaide’s! You both promised!”

Eddie is about to follow Bev down her side of the path but Richie stays put. He moves towards some of those metal teeth and looks over at them. “I think I hear something over there.”

“I bet it’s a serial killer so we should go,” replies Eddie.

“No, I think it’s a kid.”

“ _Richie_. . .kids can be serial killers, too.”

Richie fixes his glasses, makes sure he has a good hold on Soylent Green and dodges metal teeth as he approaches the Kitchener Ironworks. It looks as if somebody slit open a factory or really smashed it open like an egg on the table with the cracked edges of its walls. There’s a group ahead outside it ignoring the fact that they’re standing in so much rubble. 

As Richie gets closer, he realizes, there’s animals. A group of animals in clothes. There are deer, raccoons, cats, an owl, and more sitting around watching a human kid speak in front of them. The kid is talking pretty fast while the animals sit like they’re in class, blinking and not piping up. Maybe Bev’s the only bird around who can speak.

And speaking of Bev talking, she flies up landing on Richie’s shoulder. “Richard Trashmouth Tozier, if you do not turn around right now, so help me God.”

“Bev, you’re a bird, I can flick you off my shoulder.”

“Richie, I’m a bird, I’ll peck your eyes out.”

But Richie points at his glasses. “I’d like to see you try, I basically got safety goggles on.” He walks forward to get close enough to hear what this kid has to say to animals. Bev remains on his shoulder and Eddie is behind him struggling to catch his breath as he moves and stops and moves again.

“And that’s when it blew, killing eighty-eight kids and fourteen adults,” the kid says.

“That’s some talent,” Richie interrupts for some reason. He didn’t really mean to speak up and the kid glares at him while the animals turn their attention to him. They all hang out there blinking nonstop. “What are you even doing here?”

“I live here.” The kid looks back at the animals. “Alright, so onto the. . .”

“What do you mean it blew up and people died? When?” asks Eddie.

“I can talk to you after class,” the kid says.

“Class?!” Richie bursts out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me, you’re talking to a bunch of fucking animals. That’s not a class. It’s not even a school, they’re not fish, they’re fucking forest critters.”

“Shut up, Richie!” snaps Eddie.

“I teach animals.” The kid rolls his eyes. “I’m Ben Hanscom.”

“I’m Eddie,” says Richie, “And that’s Richie.”

“Don’t listen to him! He’s a liar. I’m Eddie and he’s Richie.” Eddie even points at Richie when he says his name all as Richie snickers.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Ben informs them.

“Telling animals about explosions?” Richie can’t stop himself from laughing.

“The Kitchener Ironworks Incident.” Ben ushers their attention to the cracked open factory. “A hundred and four people died here during an Easter Egg hunt. It took them weeks to find all the body parts. I don’t even know if they were all found, and it’s not like that’s the only strange thing. Have you heard the singing in the forest?”

Both Richie and Eddie don’t provide an answer cause they do have one, but not one they want to share because yeah, yeah they’ve heard the singing. Richie does take a step closer to Eddie and Bev continues to sit on his arm. The animals all stare and blink at them while Ben stares, as well. It’s hard to pay attention to them with the factory there. A bird bursts through some wooden pieces in what’s left of the factory’s roof, it startles Richie so bad he almost topples over. The bird soars upwards toward the sky only for another bird to catch it and fly away.

“Shit. Fuck.” Richie whispers watching the bird get carried off for dinner. “I think we should go now.”

“What other weird things happen?” Eddie has to ask. “Other than the singing in the forest.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Ben asks.

“I don’t even know where here is.”

Richie tugs at Eddie’s shoulder. “C’mon, we gotta go to Adelaide’s, remember.

“The Unknown,” replies Ben. Richie is about to try his hardest to get Eddie to move along, but Eddie swats away his hand to keep hearing what Ben has to say. “You don’t want to be out there when the sun goes down. “That’s when It will be out and about.” Ben points at the factory. “He’s why all those kids are dead. It was so bad, some people went outside the next day and found heads in their trees, and like I said, there’s even stranger things that have happened.”


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a tiny fight, Richie and Eddie go separate ways but then Richie comes across some dead bodies surrounding the Kitchener Ironworks.
> 
> Meanwhile, Eddie learns about other strange things that have happened around the ironworks' ruins.

# II.

Richie finds himself stuck in a moment where he squints at Ben honestly believing that if he squints hard enough he’ll make sense of all the bullshit just said to him. He stared for sometime before blurting, “Ok, bye!” He grabs onto Eddie to move him. “So nice knowing you, Haystack, hope we never meet again.” 

Already Richie manages to get Eddie to move to peel him away from the scene even though Eddie tries to dig his heels into the ground to not move. When he has the hot chance, he whacks Richie across the face, not too hard but not enough to stun him. Eddie yelps just as stunned as Richie.

“Eddie?!” Richie gawks at him while rubbing his cheek. “What the actual fuck?”

Eddie bites down on his lower lip as he does his best to take a little stance. He folds his arms over his chest while doing his best to look as stern as possible. “Hey! Stop it. Stop it! You’re not-You’re not the one in charge here because nobody is.”

“Ok, but we made plans together.” 

“Then we change our plans because I want to stay for a bit.”

Richie holds Soylent Green close to himself and Bev lands on his shoulder. They both shout in unison, “But Adelaide’s!”

Eddie shrugs, he makes an attempt to walk backward but there are too many metal chunks all over the place ready to knock him over. With his luck, he’d trip and break his neck or arm or something. “If you wanna go to Adelaide’s so bad then go!” With this, Eddie turns around to sit with Ben and the animals. 

This leaves Richie standing alone still gawking after Eddie at such a loss for words. Soylent Green hops from his hold to bounce around him. It’s the second time in such a short time, too, when his gift is to talk nonstop unlike anybody else he knew. Richie uses both hands to fix his glasses, he pushes them up his nose, hands on both sides of his frames.

Seconds start to pass. One. Two. Three. Long enough. Richie shouts, he stands on his toes acting all tall but doesn’t need to do this. First, Eddie’s pretty short and second, Eddie’s not even there. Yet he stands on his toes and shouts, “I’M NOT LEAVING. . .without you!” The last part comes out in an accidental whisper, but he meant it.

“Smooth,” Bev comments while still hanging out on his shoulder.

“What? It’d be weird if I just abandoned him in the woods, he doesn’t know where Adelaide is.”

“Oh, right, that’s why you said that.”

“Well, yeah. It is why I said that.” Richie peers at Bev, she’s barely in sight thanks to his black frames.

Bev took flight shouting back to him, “I think you need some alone time.” And she leaves him to hang out with Eddie and those random animals.

Richie wrinkles his nose and looks down at Soylent Green. “Why do I have to be alone?” Not to mention, he needs her to get to Adelaide’s. Soylent Green sits there looking up at him and ribbits. “Oh right, you’re a fucking non-talking frog, you can’t answer me.” He takes off dragging his feet along the way and kicks some metal chunks along the way to see if they topple over. None of them do as he carries on further away from the group and into the woods.

###

Not much is said while Ben keeps an eye on Richie who moves away from them. Richie at least disappears behind the trees and he looks back at Eddie with a shy sort of smile. “Is he always like that?”

“Yeah,” Eddie starts saying right away and so des Bev at the same time. The two are nodding and speaking in unison, “Yeah. Yeah.”

Ben scans the little crowd. “So where were we?”

All the little forest animals stare at Ben, blinking. Bev sighs, she’s on Eddie’s shoulder feeling uncomfortable over this situation. “You were talking about how the factory went boom and people died.”

“What she said,” adds Eddie. “Who blew up the factory? Was it like a bomb?”

“That’s the thing, nobody knows.” Ben leans forward a tiny bit more focusing on Bev and Eddie rather than the other animals. They sit around blinking without doing much. “The machinery was all shut down for the Easter Egg hunt that day yet somehow the machinery was sabotage and it blew up taking all those lives, not everybody was found.”

Eddie looks over at the ruins of the ironworks. The sun is already setting, it's sinking behind the jagged edges of the factory. It looks like it can all gut the sun. Why are we here? Eddie is about to ask, but Ben keeps talking about those stranger things.

“There’s been sightings of a giant bird out here,” Ben doesn’t even look at the ironworks while talking. “I heard about the bird from the woodsman. He told me a lot about this place and the bird he’s seen. It’s so big, doesn’t even look like a bird, more like a dinosaur.”

“Bird,” whispers Eddie as he continues to look at the ironworks. “Where’d the bird go? If it’s really so big then shouldn’t we see it somewhere?”

Ben looks up and shrugs while Bev moves a little closer to Eddie. 

“I don’t think I like any part of that story,” Bev whispers to Eddie, but Ben hears, too.

“It really sucked,” Eddie agrees still looking at the ruins, but nothing moves. Just the Earth, technically, as the sun continues to set. He looks back to the woods realizing, Richie isn’t back yet. “Richie?” Of course there’s no response because there is no Richie to respond. Ben is back to talking about his strange stories, but Eddie fails to hear them as he watches the trees. None of them move even though it’s a little windy out. Not a single leaf falls even though they’re all turning red and about to fall, the wind scrapping them away from their branches.

###

Richie is arguing with himself, pretending to be himself and Eddie. “ _No, go, leave, I wanna listen to some stupid fucking story here._ ” “I can’t leave, we’re. . .friends or whatever.” “ _But I’m a stupid person who has to listen to stupid stories or I’ll die and you’re gonna die from salmonella._ ” Richie kicks at another one of those metal pieces, but this one bit back at his toes. “Motherfucker!” He hops grabbing his toes as he hops along only to trip and scrapes his knees along the ground. “Jesus and Mary Chain!”

Ribbit, is the only response. Soylent Green is sitting there looking at him. Richie lays on the ground and looks up at the trees above him.

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” whispers Richie. 

He starts to grab onto some rocks to help him steady himself to get up, but he pauses. Not sure why, but he stops because there’s something above him catching his attention. There’s still enough sunlight for him to make out something upwards in the tree. Richie rises up staring into somebody’s eyes, some kid’s eyes, but it’s just the kid’s head stuck in tree branches.

_Ribbit_ , is all Soylent Green has to say about that.

“GUYS?!” Richie shouts. He doesn’t even blink while he stares at the head there. Fragments of the factory are all around him where so, so many people died. If somebody asked him to name even fifty or a hundred or more people he directly knew in life, he’d fail.

Eddie. There’s Eddie.

“GUYS?!” Richie turns around and around a few times, but he came out there all alone.

Eddie. Bill. Bev. Ben. Mike. They’re new, but count. His mom. His dad. His sister. That’s eight.

Richie scoops his frog off the ground adding Soylent Green to the list. He’s about to sprint but his foot almost crushes a little black turtle moving its way through the weeds on the ground. So Richie goes to step around the turtle almost stepping on another black turtle. In fact, there’s a lot. There’s a whole lot of turtles and he’s stuck there underneath a dead kid.

Eddie. 

_Eddie_ , Bill, Bev, Ben, Mike, Mom, Dad, his sister, Soylent Green, Officer Neil. . .

Richie manages to step over some of the black turtles making his way forward back towards the ruins. He has to step over some metal teeth and almost stumbles when something crunches under his feet. It’s no black turtle. Richie looks down finding paper stashed underneath some rocks there. He grabs onto one pulling it out and straightening it to see, **Missing**.

He can yell GUYS again but nobody would answer. Nobody’s here for him. Richie holds onto his own missing poster in one hand and Soylent Green in the other. When he does look back to get one final look at the head, he spots a second kid. Their arms dangling in the branches, their fingers match the little crooked ends of the branch. A lot of people died out here. A lot of people died out here. But that kid said it happened so long ago, who leaves bodies out for so long? They have to decompose at some point.

This time, Richie drops the Missing Richie Tozier poster and takes off. He hugs Soylent Green and dodges metal teeth before he bursts free. It’s so close to being so dark, it’s twilight and he’s pretty sure he can still see everybody sitting in their circle. Rather than chase after them, Richie sees a bell tower out of the corner of his eye. Instead, he hops over there grabbing onto it and starts to pull down on the bell getting it to clang, clang, clang.

Once again, Richie attempts on yelling a “GUYS?!”

And somebody answers, “Why are you ringing the dinner bell?”

It’s Ben. He’s standing there pointing at the bell with some of his weird animal friends.

“Wait, you have a fucking dinner bell?”

The animals start licking their teeth.

Eddie and Bev join them and Richie smiles at them. “Eddie! Bev! We should go!”

“But I’m hungry,” replies Eddie.

“You had no idea this was the dinner bell.”

“But I did because you ran it and Ben went, that’s the dinner bell.”

Richie releases the bell and glances over his shoulder. The trees look normal here, about as normal as any of them have looked since they entered the Unknown. He sighs, closes his eyes. Right away he comes face to face with the kid in the tree and the hand up there pointing at him. Richie fixes his glasses and opens his eyes sort of smiling at them like nothing is wrong.

“Yeah, we should eat and probably sleep here.”

Eddie nods.

“Even I agree.” Bev stares at the trees. “I don’t like those in the night, but then we leave right away tomorrow to Adelaide’s.”

“To Adelaide’s,” Richie says.

Eddie, too. “To Adelaide’s.”

And Ben asks, “Adelaide’s?”

Bev offers no explanation, “Sorry, it’s sort of a private thing. Us going to Adelaide’s.”

“But why?” asks Ben.

“None of your business,” grumbles Richie.

It’s back to Bev leading the conversation. “Um you’ll get it someday, but first food, yay, no scary woods. Where are we eating?”

“Over there.” Ben points at the ironworks. The sun is about gone and those edges haven’t changed, there’s no roof to protect them if it rains and no telling what machines remain inside or the state they’re in since the explosion so long ago. The explosion that killed so many people. Apparently that’s where they’re to sleep and eat for the night.


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaos. Birds. Broken Bones. Oh and Mike Hanlon makes a come back.

# III.

“Do you think birds can eat potatoes and molasses?” Richie whispers this to Eddie like Bev isn’t supposed to hear him yet there she is sitting across the table from him with a plate in front of you.

“I can hear you!” she snaps.

“With your bird super hearing?”

“Shut up, Richie, that’s not a thing.” 

Ben joins them with the same food. The four at sitting at one long table with the rest of the forest critters who eat by leaning forward into their dishes. Bev isn’t eating. On occasion she’ll glance at Ben before looking outside, the sun is down and they’re all sitting inside an abandoned factory. Not much is left of its factory-ness though. All of it was gutted from the explosion. Ash still falls around them, landing in the food, which to be honest, only Ben and the animals eat. Eddie is pretty quiet as he stares at the ash falling into his mashed potatoes.

“Are you going to eat that?” Richie scoots a little closer to Eddie pointing at his food.

Eddie looks over at him. “Did you ever hear of the Great Molasses Flood?”

“No, no, I haven’t because I’m too busy being cool,” Richie replies.

“Richie! People actually died! They drowned in the molasses!”

Richie pokes at his food with his fork. “Hey Eds, if you drowned in molasses, I’d never eat it again. Now, I still don’t know what molasses is, but I’d avoid it.”

“Oh, it’s in gingerbread and barbecue sauce.” Eddie pushes Richie away from his food.

Richie licks his fork while grinning at him. “Then please don’t drown in molasses, I’d prefer to eat gingerbread forever so don’t go and fuck up my life.”

“So you’d miss molasses more than me?”

“Yeah, probably.” Richie’s smirk is the type anybody would want to punch off his face.

“Cool, cool.” Eddie pokes at some of his food. Still, he doesn’t eat, but he looks right up to watch Richie who pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The whole time Richie smirks at him. “And Richie?”

“Yeah?” This time he takes a small bite of Eddie’s potatoes.

“Stop calling me Eds.” And he stands up with his food leaving the table.

“Hey, Richie?” Bev interrupts. Not that Richie is saying anything, he gawks at the spot where Eddie had been sitting. He looks at him. “You really fucked up.”

“Shut up, you’re a bird!”

Bev rolls her eyes. “No, I’m a human who's been changed into a bird. Get it right.”

This comment gets Ben to stop eating. He looks up from his plate. Eddie still hasn’t returned to him. Such curiosity lights up his round face. “A human changed into a bird?” Bev responds with a nod. “What did you look like as a human.”

“Um, I had short, curly, red hair?” This statement comes off more as a question like Bev’s forgetting.

“Red hair?” Ben repeats. His cheeks are a little flushed. “Like winter fire?”

“No, like normal red hair.” But Bev looks down and it gets Richie to wonder if birds could blush would she be blushing. Richie rolls his eyes at this and looks at his food not really interested in eating anything. The ash continues to fall around them, it’ll never stop.

Richie looks up and the ash starts to collect on his lenses. He looks back down over at Ben. “So do you have beds around to sleep in? I’d rather not sleep on the forest floor again.”

“Yeah, there’s beds. Where else would we sleep?”

“Um, not some factory that’s blown up?” replies Richie. He looks around the one and only room they sit inside. There’s not even a place to lie down, no sign of beds for them. The animals are still eating their food. “Hey. . .where’d Eddie go?”

Bev looks around, too, he’s nowhere to be seen. “Maybe he just went to the bathroom.”

“Ok, yeah, but where’s the fucking bathroom then?”

“Oh, right.” Ben perks up. He’s not really blushing anymore. He looks around, there’s no sign of Eddie anywhere. “Um, it’s outside.”

“But didn’t you say it’s dangerous out there at night?!” snaps Richie. He shouts so loud, it gathers the attention of people around them. “We should go find him.” He jumps to his feet and stands there looking at the gaping exit about to make his way out there to see if Eddie’s outside.

Right as Richie makes his way towards him, he hears Eddie behind him though. “What’s going on?”

Richie whirls around and smiles at him. “Eddie!”

“Yeah, what?”

“We thought you died,” Bev announces.

Eddie looks from her to Richie. “No, I’m fine.” He looks over at Ben. “How come none of the animals talk?”

“What?” replies Ben.

“You heard me, why don’t any of the animals talk?”

“Oh, right.” Ben turns looking at a opossum who is casually eating its food. “I’m teaching them.” He looks back at them. “We should go to bed, it’s getting late.”

Bev hops away from her food and Richie takes her plate putting it on top of his. “We have to get up early anyway to go to Adelaide’s.”

Richie continues to stand around with all their food in hand while Eddie hangs around beside him. There’s not a lot said. Ben makes some weird face like he’s holding back a comment about Adelaide’s. After a few seconds of them being silent, Richie moves to toss their food only to stop. He spots a red balloon floating through the gaping entrance. It makes its way through such jagged edges and is followed by another one. None of them are about to stop though. There’s more and more red balloons spilling into the gutted factory.

“That’s uncomforting!” blurts Richie.

Ben snaps his attention to them. “RUN!”

“What?” Eddie says.

Almost as a way to say, you heard him, Richie shoves Eddie forward and does so again as he starts to run. Bev flies upwards and the other animals scatter. There’s another WHAT from Eddie except Richie continues to push him forward. All those animals, they spread apart, sprinting away and in an attempt to escape. One of them barrels into the two, knocking them over and Richie topples over losing his glasses for a second. When he puts them back on, he sits up finding himself almost alone. The others have fled. He sits there by himself fixing his glasses. Even Eddie’s gone.

Richie stands up grabbing onto one of the chairs an animal had been sitting in. He slams it into the table thinking he can free one of the wooden legs, but nope, this doesn’t work. Richie goes to make another attempt at doing this only to become distracted by some shouting.

###

Eddie turns around realizing Richie’s gone. He had no idea where but there he is standing outside while the animals push past him and Bev flies around his head a few times before landing on his shoulder. It looks like Ben is gone, as well. None of the animals stick around.

“Richie?” Eddie says while he just stands around there.

“We should go,” Bev says.

“Go where? And go without Richie?”

Bev leaves Eddie heading back towards the ironworks. “I’ll go look for him this way.”

“I don’t think we should. . .” Bev is already gone though “. . .up.” This leaves Eddie alone outside the ironworks. He sees another one of those balloons as it rises up further into the sky. Up there he spots some shadow moving above him. No, it takes him a moment to realize whatever it is is not moving above him, but right at him. “Oh, shit.”

A larger than life bird plunges out of the sky and all Eddie can do is watch realizing he can’t breathe because oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, he might be about to die. Oh shit. Only something strikes Eddie’s back, he flies forward nearly missing the talons of the creature, it strikes the ground before flinging itself upwards again to the sky. Eddie rolls over about to yell, Richie, but it’s no Richie Tozier who pushed him out of the way. 

Nope. 

It’s Mike Hanlon, still without his lantern but he stands there watching as the bird disappears up in the sky, but not for long. It circles around about to come back at them again.

Both Mike and Eddie look at each other, gawking in a moment of panic. There’s no sign of Ben and the others forcing them to make their next move. Rather than make a break for the woods, they run towards the ruins of the Kitchener Ironworks. Above the bird screeches sounding more like a human screaming in the night. It again plunges downward at them again. Mike runs a tiny bit faster making it indoors before Eddie leaving Eddie out there again and alone but he dives forward sliding inside almost face-first into some rubble.

Mike helps Eddie up to his feet and the two barely have a chance as something moves towards them. Eddie pauses staring at whoever this may be. It’s the second time he goes, “Richie?” But it sure isn’t Richie as somebody stumbles forward, their face is peeling off and they can’t quite seem to get their balance. Eddie finds himself stuck there hyperventilating forcing Mike to push him forward. They make their way across some rubble. To which, Eddie shouts out, “RICHIE?!” More to find him then to see if he’s present because he’s got to be somewhere. Talons strike down on the roof knocking pieces to the ground with few places to hide.

One of the rocks slams Eddie off-balance, Mike continues and Eddie is hit by more. Mike whirls around to look back at him. Eddie sits up trying to think, trying to think, trying to think but the person with their peeling face is coming at them faster, more rubble is falling, Richie is gone, and-and-and-and Eddie looks down unable to process the fact his arm is broken, he should be in pain, and his arm is broken and he is in a whole lot of pain. It shatters his thoughts leaving him there to scream.

The other creature drags itself toward him, it looks as if he is puking black blood the whole time, his toes getting caught on rocks and Eddie tries to get up. Any movement sends more pain through his system and sparking his vision.

Ben makes a come back swinging an iron rod into the side of the creature. Its blood all black splatters everywhere. Eddie almost pukes himself and panics wanting to wipe it from himself but can’t, his one arm won’t move and the rest of his body says stop. Just stop. 

“EDDIE!” Richie screams. He hops across some ruble almost hit by something else falling. He hesitates to look up at those talons but fails to stop as he leaps forward, knees scraping across the ground to sit by Eddie. “Eddie! Eddie!”

Ben stays in the same spot still holding up the chair ready for another attack. Whatever had been chasing them melts into the ground. Its black blood bubbling up before it sinks deeper into the mud. Those talons slip away allowing silence to follow. Right away Bev flies up, up, up and away as she leaves the ironworks to get a better look at what’s happening out there.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asks Mike.

Mike points up, “I saw It.”

This leaves Richie and Eddie to themselves. Bev flies back down announcing, “Coast is clear.”

Eddie glares at Richie who reaches out to touch him, but Eddie kicks out at him almost hitting him in the chest. This fails. He yells though, “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

“We need a hospital!” yelps Richie looking at his crooked list. “I can fix this.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Eddie keeps screaming at him with another attempt to knock Richie over who stays close managing to hold onto his wrist. “Richie!”

“Somebody. . .get something!” Richie shouts at them and Bev takes off as do Ben and Mike leaving them together. Richie bites his lower lip. Eddie scowls at him. “So. . .I think I’m going to change Soylent Green’s name to George Washington instead.”

“I hate you,” mutters Eddie.

But Richie smiles at him. “Well. . .you’re. . .you’re a bad liar.” Without any warning, Richie snaps Eddie’s bone into place clenching his teeth while Eddie screams at him. Their only hope is the others returning with _something_ to help make the situation a little better. There’s probably no regular hospitals in the Unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm not proud of this at all but I also wanna move on to bigger and better parts.
> 
> So if you are still reading this, I hope this scene is ok with you.


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie is jealous. Betrayal is around the corner. But Ben and Mike are here to stay.

# IV.

Eddie isn’t sure when he fell asleep, he’s not sure when he started to dream, but at some point he did. At some point, Bill Denborough was there. Eddie saw so himself. He had two ice cream cones in hand as he walked into a clearing of the woods towards a football game. Somehow players were sprinting past trees with the ball in hand. He watched them for a split second before ducking underneath the bleachers. Eddie stopped losing his ice cream cones because on some rocks are Richie and Bill laughing about something. Only when they noticed him there, Richie looked up and said: _Eddie Spaghetti, we were talking about what a loser you were, get over here._

Then there’s the trees again, but no ice cream and no football game and no Bill Denbrough but there is pain. He sits up realizing Richie is fast asleep close to him. Ben and Mike are lying close by, everybody is fast asleep except for Bev who sits on a little tree branch staring at Eddie. Eddie sits up realizing his arm is all bound up in a makeshift cast/sling or whatever they put together while he was out.

“Welcome back, Eds,” Bev says.

“I’m pretty sure Richie can sue you for saying that,” retorts Eddie.

“Yeah, didn’t sound right.”

Eddie looks over at the three who are fast asleep. “My mom is going to be so mad.”

“You’re mom isn’t even here.”

“I’m going to have to see her at some point though, right? After Adelaide helps us get home?”

Bev makes no comment. The one sound is the frog formerly known as Soylent Green who ribbits startling Eddie who snaps his attention too fast to look at it. Pain sparks up again. Eddie sits there looking at the frog not noticing Richie slowly sitting up. He yawns stretching his arms as he rubs his eyes not wearing his glasses. They’re sitting on a rock close by. Richie sits there looking at Eddie.

“What are you doing?” Richie says with another yawn.

“Um sitting here?” replies Eddie. “Better question is what are they doing?”

Richie looks over at Ben and Mike. He puts his glasses on and stares at them again as if he is considering what words to select then he looks at Eddie. “It looks as if they are. . .sleeping.”

“I asked what are they doing here!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Why are they here?”

Richie points at Ben. “He said he knows a place to stay for the night.”

Eddie points at the sky. “It’s day time.”

“Yeah, alright then, we need actual beds to sleep in so we’re gonna go there anyway.”

Bev flies down closer to them. She perches on a rock between Eddie and Richie. “What? No, we need to go to Adelaide’s. No more stops. We’re running out of time.”

She’s loud enough to wake Ben and Mike who sit up partially stretching to see what’s happening. Richie pushes his glasses up and shakes his head. “What? Running out of time for what?”

“I don’t know, look at Eddie!” Bev practically shrieks.

Richie looks at Eddie then back to her. “Bev. . .he’s always been ugly, nothing can change that.”

“Fuck you, Richie.”

“Fuck you!”

“You can’t just say the same insult back!” Bev joins them yelling.

“Can’t you keep it down?” asks Mike. “I’m exhausted.

“You’re exhausted? Look at me, I’m dying!” Eddie shouts.

“Yeah, look, he’s dying, BEV, so we need to find a better place to stay.” Richie gets up. “We vote. Ben says he knows a place to stay, some sort of inn so we can go there, eat, use bathrooms, and sleep in beds or we can keep going onto Adelaide’s. So raise your hands for Ben’s inn?”

Eddie, Mike, and Ben all raise their hands.

Bev shakes her head and groans. “Birds don’t have hands, that’s not fair.”

“Even if you had hands, you’d still be a loser! That’s four to one.”

Another long groan from Bev and she buries her face into her wings. “Fine. But we don’t stay for long!” She flies up off the rock looking down at Ben. “Then lead the way.” She mutters as she continues to fly upward to get away from them. “I hope there’s only one room and one bed left there so you all suffer.”

Richie helps Eddie stand up careful not to touch his injured arm. It’s back to them walking through The Unknown, but this round, there’s more of them. Richie and Eddie continue to walk side by side while Richie hugs his frog friend. Behind them, Ben and Mike follow. Ben points out for them to start walking straight.

“It’s actually a tavern,” Ben corrects them from the earlier conversation. “Where we’re going.”

“Whatever, inn, tavern, they’re the same thing. A place with food and beds. Onwards, motherfuckers!” Richie dramatically points ahead of them still stepping in sync of Eddie. “To the tavern!”

“The Dark Lantern,” comments Mike.

“Huh?” Eddie glances back at him keeping in mind, his lantern is still gone and that means something.

“The name of the tavern, it’s called The Dark Lantern, it’s where we’re going.”

Bev continues to fly above them. “Adelaide’s would still be better, promise, you’ll see.”

But Richie leans super close to Eddie smirking at him. The usual smirk that made Eddie both want to slap him or. . .he isn’t too sure but he looks at the ground rather than at Richie. “Watch us get to Adelaide’s and it’s some sort of bogus trap.”

“Since when do you say bogus?” responds Eddie not looking at him.

“Since like two seconds ago when I said, Watch us get to Adelaide’s and it’s some sort of bogus trap?” Richie laughs and shakes his head. “How far do we have to go, Haystack?”

“Not far,” responds Ben.

“What’s the drinking age around here?”

“Drinking age?” asks Ben.

Richie looks back at him. “Yeah, you know like adult appropriate drinks, is there a drinking age?”

Mike and Ben look at each other. It’s Ben who still replies, “Um, I don’t know.”

This time Richie moves so close to Eddie almost knocking him off balance. He wrinkles his nose feeling too much pain by the way he moves to get away from Richie who just keeps moving on closer to him. “If we can drink, first drink is on me.”

“Richie, we don’t have money.”

“I’ll figure it out when we’re there.” Richie shrugs and punches Eddie’s good arm causing him more pain. He gawks at Eddie. “Shit! Fuck! Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” mutters Eddie.

They all move along while Bev avoids them while flying through the air. At least she stops complaining about them not going to Adelaide’s while making their way to the tavern. Back on path, somewhat. At some point, they’ll get home. Maybe. Eddie picks at his makeshift sling, pain sparks up. There’s not much he or any of them can do about the situation, but the current silence is nice. Even though it’s always a little unsettling when Richie shuts up, but, they’re all too tired to even care. That and Ben or Mike don’t know the guy. Just Eddie. Bev, too, but she’s not ready to hang around them. Eddie looks up realizing, Bev is gone, out of sight. He makes no comment on the fact because she’s probably close enough by.

###

Bev soars way above them avoiding tree branches, she breaks through them all and flies as fast as she can. Bev looks back once. A distant thought about maybe letting them know she’ll be back crosses her mind, but again, time is running out and time is running out fast. Bev manages to flap her wings even faster and it doesn’t take her long to arrive at a small house in the midst of trees.

She lands on a windowsill sighing so loud. Bev pushes shudders open hearing a screech on the inside, “CLOSE THAT WINDOW!” Which she does, she just needed to enter first. “Ah, Beverly Marsh, you decided to return after all.” A decrepit lady sits in a bed, she pulls a quilt close to her face while shaking her head. “You know how I feel about the fresh air. You wouldn’t want to be the death of me, would you?”

Bev lands on a bedpost looking down at Adelaide who looks as if she is trembling while she holds onto the edge of her quilt. “Of course not, Adelaide.”

“Where are the boys you mentioned?”

Bev sighs. “I promise, they’ll be here soon.”

“I thought you said you wanted to be human again.”

“I do! I do!” Bev sighs. “They’re more. . .troublesome than I thought. . .”

Adelaide moans sounding as if she is in great pain. “Well, hurry up, my child. You know you do not want to keep It waiting for much longer.” 

Bev continues to stare at Adelaide. At first, there are no words she wants to say out loud. She has them and she has a lot of questions to ask such as why the boys are so important to the old woman and if the other two kids she’s met matter, as well. Instead, Bev lifts off the bedpost while still looking down at Adelaide. “Understood, we’ll be here before. . .sundown.”

“Do you promise?” Adelaide asks.

“I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

Already Bev is close to the window about to leave. She hovers there looking at Adelaide. “If I end up arriving after sundown, I’ll arrive. . .with two extra children, I promise.”

“Good, good.” Adelaide nods and Bev leaves. 

As soon as she opens the shudders, Adelaide screams for her to shut them. Of course, she does, she’s not some animal. Bev flies off as quick as before feeling exhaustion starting to weigh down on her. From above she spots Richie, Eddie, Ben, and Mike still moving along the same bath. To think, they barely made it too far. She lands on Richie’s shoulder and sighs for a real long time again.

“What’s wrong, Buttercup?” Richie asks her.

“Richard Tozier. . .never call me that again.”

“Agreed, it wasn’t my best.” Richie smiles at her, not that she really sees while hanging out next to him on his shoulder. It’s back to their silence as they move along together still heading towards the same destination of The Dark Lantern Tavern and then onto Adelaide’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Songs of the Dark Lantern is up next and it might be a little bit shorter but hey guess who's going to show up?
> 
> The Bowers Gang.


End file.
